


You Are the Sun And I—

by lurkinglurkerwholurks



Series: The Last of the Real Ones [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest (Comics)
Genre: Bromance, Bruce Wayne Angst, Bruce Wayne has anxiety that isn't unfounded, Clark Kent & Bruce Wayne Friendship, Dick Grayson is Robin, Epic Bromance, Gen, UNCLE CLARK, and Clark Kent can be A Lot, one affectionate head bonk, platonic pet names, pre-Justice League, superbros, the best bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 14:28:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20116594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/pseuds/lurkinglurkerwholurks
Summary: Bruce was conscious of the power seething beneath Clark’s skin, but it always set him back to see it in action. To see the quiet, self-effacing man he knew become something else. Someone else. It was what made Clark’s facile disguise convincing, the way he changed to face a threat. Bruce was glad, as he always was, that Superman had chosen their side to fight on, but that didn’t make the raw power on display any less breathtaking.





	You Are the Sun And I—

**Author's Note:**

  * For [audreycritter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/gifts).

Bruce could feel when the tides of battle began to turn in their favor. He was no warrior, but he was a strategist and a businessman. Negotiations with fists and weapons were negotiations nonetheless, and the shifting winds of favor never failed to lift the hair on the back of his neck.

Later, Bruce would analyze body cam footage and field reports to break the fight down to its essentials. Like a football coach studying the most important game of his life, the field would be dissected play by play, moment by moment, decision by decision. There was always another fight. Always another war to be won.

_We might not be so lucky next time._

That was always the fear. Next time… next time…

But this time felt less like luck and more like… a miracle? Divine intervention?

Bruce lifted his head from the dusty ground and braced his elbows against the shattered turf. His training urged him to get to his feet, to defend himself, to fight, but there was no point. The last blow had popped something in his chest, making pain radiate with every breath. Besides, he was outmatched here, and the winds had shifted.

It was less of a deadly dance that played out in the sky overhead and more of a one-sided brutal beatdown. The winged creature hit futilely at its attacker, claw-tipped limbs raking feverishly across skin that would not break before shifting into muscled tentacles that strained against gripping, squeezing hands that would not yield. It turned and fled, a blue streak and Bruce’s gaze in hot pursuit. 

_Clash of the Titans_ was a phrase used flippantly to describe competitive sports and sweaty men in boxing gloves, but here, now, this? The Titans were gods, both children of deities and deities themselves, far above humankind in power and might. Bruce could think of no better way to describe the combat before him. Hercules wrestling the hydra. God against god, battling for the fate of man.

Bruce was conscious of the power seething beneath Clark’s skin, but it always set him back to see it in action. To see the quiet, self-effacing man he knew become something else. Someone else. It was what made Clark’s facile disguise convincing, the way he changed to face a threat. Bruce was glad, as he always was, that Superman had chosen their side to fight on, but that didn’t make the raw power on display any less breathtaking.

The fight concluded with the world ending. Or at least, that’s what it felt like. Superman gripped the beast by one of its many throats and whirled the wheezing creature over his head before slamming it to earth. The ground buckled with the concussive blow. Bruce cowered on his face, arms thrown protectively over his head and neck, and rode the cresting wave of dirt and weeds until the earth settled with a shudder back into place.

Bruce shuddered a bit himself as he lifted his head once more. The creature lay prone and unmoving where it had been thrown, likely dead but certainly defeated. Above it, Superman hovered, his back to Bruce as he faced the watching entities arrayed between him and the sun. He was utterly still except for the slow ebb and flow of his cape, a monument to implacable power.

He was so small, little more than a speck against the armies waiting above. And yet it did not matter. He did not move.

“This planet is protected.” Alien lungs carried the words through the open air, a trumpet of triumph and a warning. 

There was no answer from above. The hosts gleamed in the light, casting deep shadows over their fallen champion.

Superman rose. Not much, just a few dozen feet, but he seemed to grow larger as he lifted. Thousands of eyes followed his movements.

“This planet is protected.” This time, the words were not spoken but roared. Even from a distance, Bruce could see the tendons bulge in Superman’s neck. His normally cool blue eyes burned red. “This world and its people are under my protection. I have destroyed your great champion. Return and I will destroy you, too. This is your only warning.”

Bruce held his breath as he curled in on himself, then gingerly rose to his knees. Though the sky was filled with eyes, none marked his movement. They were all focused on the god in front of them.

Superman held their attention and their silence in his palm, then cast one finger out in the direction of their home system.

“Leave. And do not return.”

They left. Bruce didn’t watch them go, but he could feel the pressure in the air lessen as it was emptied of its invaders. Bruce’s attention was on himself, on the shooting pain in his knee that he had somehow missed and the throb of at least one torn muscle in his chest, and on the thrum of panic building behind his ribs. He needed to get out of here.

The only warning he had was the shadow falling across his face a moment before a voice spoke.

“Batman?”

Bruce’s head snapped up. Superman hovered just above him, one hand extended. “Are you alright?”

_What does it matter? What does it matter if I’m dandy or on death’s door? What could I possibly matter?_

It was like worrying over a mote of dust or a ragged cobweb. He was nothing, just a man wrapped in a thin layer of plastic and dead animal. His life was a squiggly little amoeba on the petri dish of humanity, just one out of billions, and they would all rise and fall under the eyes of the one hovering before him.

“I’m fine.” Even as the words came out, Bruce marveled that he could speak, that he could sound _normal_. Gruffer than usual, certainly, but still stoic, still in control. Not like his world had just radically shifted in scope.

“Here, let me h—“

“I’m _fine_,” Bruce barked. The hand withdrew, retreating from the snarling, cowering animal he had become. Bruce sucked in a whistling breath through his nose, braced his hand against his knee, and hauled himself to his feet.

The world tilted, swirling like an Impressionist masterpiece. Bruce closed his eyes. It was a moment of weakness, but what was one moment amid a lifetime?

“No offense, but you don’t look fine.”

Of course he didn’t. Because Superman had x-ray vision. He could see what was wrong with Bruce’s knee, with his chest, with his pounding head. In one glance, he could know more about Bruce’s body than Bruce did.

These powers, these capabilities, they were what had frightened Bruce in the beginning, what had pit him against his neighbor to the west. He’d had some scope for Superman’s powers and the danger he could be and had refused to fawn like the rest of the world.

Then Bruce had met what he had thought was the man behind the lone curl and valiant smile. He’d gotten to know Clark, had reluctantly fallen under the sway of a big-hearted man with a soft lilt to his voice and stars in his eyes.

It wasn’t that Bruce had forgotten what Clark was capable of; the lead-lined safe in the Batcave attested to that. No, it was more that Bruce had… set it aside. He’d valued his partnership with the Man of Steel, had let himself be soothed by a Midwestern accent and an aw-shucks demeanor.

Never again.

Bruce drew himself up as much as he could manage, opened his eyes, and fled. It was less a run than a slow, shuffling hobble, but it was a retreat nevertheless. What else could he do?

Bruce heard his name but didn’t turn or stop, even though putting his back to Superman made the skin between his shoulder blades crawl. He needed to get home. He needed to heal and to plan. Nothing he came up with would be enough, he knew that even now, but the need for contingencies was baked into his marrow. He needed to get to work.

He wanted to crawl under his bed and huddle in the dark like a child.

Superman let him go. Perhaps he followed for a time, perhaps he didn’t. It didn’t matter. If he wanted to, Superman could come for Bruce, any time, any place.

Bruce went home. He submitted to medical care under Alfred’s deft hands, he allowed himself six hours of sleep, and then he began to plan.

Superman called the next day. Bruce refused to answer and waved Alfred away. The wise move, he knew, would be to behave exactly the same. <s>The man</s> The alien was a threat, but not an active one. The more Bruce could keep him in an unsuspecting, tolerant lull, the better.

He couldn’t do it. Superman would know. A fragment of his voice, a peek at his heart rate, his pulse, and Bruce’s deception would be undone. Thankfully, Bruce already had a reputation for surliness and standoffishness, so he could fall back on that for a little while.

Superman called the Manor twice more and Bruce’s cell three times. He was rebuffed each time. Their casual working lunches, which had never been frequent and always fell under a cover story, withered away to nothing. No new intergalactic threats loomed. Superman stayed in Metropolis. Batman stayed in Gotham. Bruce healed. And he planned.

The situation might have stagnated for months, or even years, a standoff with only one side participating, had Gotham not been so very… Gotham.

Batman and Robin had tracked a ruthless gang of drug smugglers to a block of high-rises under construction in a gentrifying neighborhood of Gotham. The homes and small family businesses, once passed from generation to generation, had been swallowed whole into the maw of “progress,” chewed up, then spat out into flashy new towers of glass and steel.

It was into one of these towers that the masked protectors of Gotham climbed, hot on the heels of their quarry. They had been thinning out the gang little by little, knocking out and tying up each member as they separated them from the larger group. They were down to three now and had the men cornered on the top floor of the high-rise.

Though they were inside the building, the structure could barely warrant the name. The frame was in place, but there were no walls yet, and the floor still had gaping holes between some of the girders where one could look down for what felt like miles. The cool night wind whipped through the open space, tugging on Bruce’s cape and wicking the sweat from his skin. 

Bruce had half his attention on his current attacker, a brutally solid man with bushy sideburns Bruce mentally referred to as Elvis, and half his attention on Robin. Thank God Dick had a head for heights. Even if his antics made Bruce’s own stomach flip, it was a relief to know that the boy could nimbly dodge any punch thrown his way without plummeting into one of those open holes.

They needed to end this fight. Bruce’s chest, though mostly healed, had begun to protest seventeen floors ago. He needed a heating pad and a handful of aspirin. Also, it was past Dick’s bedtime. Alfred was going to be pissed.

Bruce had just registered these thoughts when he was struck from behind. The reinforced cowl protected his skull, but the force of the blow made Bruce stagger forward. Before he could regain his balance, the plywood board struck him again, this time from the side and across his jaw. Bruce went down. He rolled onto his back just in time to see Elvis loom over him, lift a steel-booted foot, and stomp down.

The sickening crack in Bruce’s knee rang through the night like a pistol shot. Bruce’s scream was muffled by his gritted teeth, locked against the vomit rising in his throat.

“Batman!”

Bruce writhed, twisting to look for his partner. Dick had gotten himself boxed in by his opponent. As Bruce watched from the poured cement floor, the gangbanger fisted the front of Robin’s uniform and lifted him into the air. Robin struggled, kicking and clawing the way Bruce had taught him. The man paid no heed. Bruce watched, the world slowing down to the microsecond, as Robin scrabbled for purchase, then was heaved over the edge of the high-rise and out of sight.

His boy was there and then he was gone, nothing left but his scream. Bruce fought to get to his feet, but there was no time, no space between Dick and the hard earth thirty floors below. His body was too slow, too feeble, too human.

“SUPERMAN!”

There was a rattling boom in the sky that nearly sent Bruce sprawling again, then a streak of blue and red. With a roar, Bruce pivoted up onto his good knee, pulled a batarang from his belt, and stabbed his attacker through the meat of his thigh before whipping the weapon into the second man, pinning him to the stack of lumber behind him.

Bruce lunged forward, half-crawling, half-limping toward the building’s edge. The third man, Dick’s murderer, had fled. Bruce reached the edge just as Superman floated into view, a huddled little boy cradled in his arms.

“Robin!”

Superman had one hand tucked against Dick’s cheek, cradling the boy’s head against his chest and blocking his face from view. At Bruce’s cry, Superman knelt and gently scooped his cargo into Bruce’s trembling arms.

Bruce was oblivious to everything but the boy pressed to his chest. Later, he would backfill what must have happened—placing the thugs in restraints, the quick drop-off at Gotham PD, the lightning-fast hunt for the third man—but he was unaware of everything, including his own whispered reassurances in Dick’s ear.

_You’re safe you’re safe it’s okay I’ve got you I’ve got you I’ve got you it’s okay breathe love breathe_

Bruce jolted when a hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up to see Superman retreat, both palms raised reassuringly. “It’s just me. Everyone’s gone. I took them away. How is he?”

Bruce didn’t answer. He didn’t have the words. Instead he rested his cheek atop Dick’s sweaty hair and breathed.

“Can I look at him?” The request was hesitant, almost flinching. Superman was watching them, brow furrowed, shoulders pulled together in a way Bruce hadn’t seen before—not in that outfit, anyways.

At Bruce’s look, Superman elaborated, “I want to make sure he didn’t pull anything internally. That’s all. Can I…?”

Bruce felt like he’d been dropped into Oz with a head full of stuffing, a wildly beating heart, and joints that creaked with aching slowness. He managed a nod, then shifted Dick in his lap while murmuring more reassurances.

“He’s alright,” Superman announced after a pause. Then he hunched further, ducking his head until he was nearly eye level with the boy. “Dick, sweetheart, do you hear me? You’re alright. You’re safe.”

Chastising about code names was the last thing on Bruce’s mind as Dick released his iron grip to lunge back into Superman’s arms.

“Shhhh,” Superman soothed as he rubbed the little boy’s back. “You’re okay. We won’t let anything happen to you. Between me and your dad, there’ll always be someone here to catch you.”

It was a fool’s promise, one Bruce had nearly bit his own tongue off from making every time Dick was upset or hurt. He couldn’t promise nothing would ever happen. Neither of them had lived the kind of life that made those promises possible.

But, he thought, looking at the two embracing, just because he couldn’t make that promise didn’t mean no one could.

Once Dick had calmed some, Superman gave his back a final, reassuring pat and wiped the tears from the boy’s face before saying, “Can you do something for me, Robin? There’s a notepad and a pen over there on the bench. Can you sit there and write down for me everything you remember about the men you chased in here? I know Batman will have you write a report later, but having a copy for me would be really helpful.”

Dick looked to Bruce, who nodded but then held out his arm. He grunted as Dick barreled into his chest.

“Be as thorough as you can,” Bruce instructed before pressing a kiss into the boy’s hair. “Go on.”

He felt the loss the moment his arms were empty, but he let Dick wander conveniently out of earshot before looking to the waiting Superman. Bruce watched as he swallowed once, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

“Thank you,” Superman murmured, “for calling me.”

Bruce’s lips parted soundlessly. He tried again, voice deep and rough, lashed tightly to keep it from wobbling. “Thank you for coming.”

“Bruce.” He couldn’t bleed. How did he know how to sound wounded? “Of course. Every time.”

Superman pivoted slightly on one foot to look over his shoulder at Dick. Bruce studied him, taking in the strain at the corners of his eyes, strain he never saw in a fight. He wondered if Superman’s heart rate had increased at the call, at the flight, at the plunge. He wondered if it ever did. He wondered if it mattered, so long as he came.

When Superman turned back, his shoulders had hunched again, as if trying to make himself seen smaller. It was an affectation Bruce had noticed before, usually when those shoulders were clad in plaid or t-shirts of soft cotton.

“Can I…” Superman gestured at Bruce, still lying half-prone on the cement. Bruce hid his flinch as best he could and nodded.

“Dislocated,” Superman pronounced over the knee, “with a hairline fracture. You shouldn’t walk on it like this.”

Bruce swallowed and glanced Dick’s way before returning his attention to Superman. “Could you…?”

“Yes, but could we… could we talk?” The Midwestern lilt had started to creep in, warping the vowels and making them soft. Hesitant.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed and Superman met his gaze sheepishly. “You can say no. I’ve just gotten the feeling you’ve been avoiding me. Was it something I did?”

_You scared me. You reminded me that you’re not like me, that you’re more. You reminded me there are things in this universe I can’t possibly win against._

When Bruce didn’t answer, still groping for what to say, Superman’s blue eyes dropped, pinching sadly at the corners. “Would holding it while we talked make you feel better?” He nodded to the small, lead-lined pouch Bruce had added to his belt over the last few weeks.

Bruce fought against the instinct to reach for the flap. “How?”

“A lead-lined pouch just big enough to hold a small hunk of rock? On the belt of the most prepared man in the world? Bruce.” The words were a chastisement, but the eyes… the eyes were soft. Sad. Resigned. Clark’s eyes.

He’d been stupid. So incredibly stupid. Little more than a child seeing monsters in the bathroom drain and murderers in the closet.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce rasped. Guilt and remorse battled pride and won. Clark had saved his boy. He was owed. “I got scared.”

Shock flared in Clark’s eyes, only to be doused by more sadness. “I understand. I know it’s hard to… I know I’m not… It can be a lot, all of this. But Bruce, I would never, _never_ hurt you or Dick. You have to know that.”

He couldn’t make that promise. They didn’t know how long Clark would live, what would happen in his life, in Bruce’s life, in the life of the planet, while he waited for his end. He had to know that promise wasn’t enough. 

At Bruce’s silence, Clark nodded once more and ran his fingers through his hair, mussing the slicked back strands. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay. Let me fix your leg so you can get Dick home.”

Bruce leaned back against the steel girder, bracing himself. Both looked to Dick. The boy was hunched over the notepad, brow furrowed in concentration as his pen scratched across the page. Bruce gritted his teeth until his jaw creaked under the pressure and gave a sharp nod.

Clark’s hands wrapped firmly around Bruce’s knee and gave the joint a sharp jerk. Bruce screamed, but the sound was lost beneath the warm hand that had darted up, quick as lightning, to clap over his mouth.

“We’re done,” Clark reassured him. “It’s in. Breathe, sweetheart.”

Bruce sucked in a shuddering breath and rode out the wave of nausea.

This was where Clark would offer to carry Bruce or support his weight down the thirty flights to the Batmobile, an offer Bruce would long to take but refuse in the end. But the offer never came. Instead, Clark waited until it was safe to release Bruce’s mouth, then rocked back on his heels. Bruce didn’t need extraterrestrial abilities to read the emotions passing over Clark’s face like clouds, to see that Clark was at a loss, desperate to regain the trust he had lost but already convinced of the futility and unwilling to impose on the one person he himself had trusted with both of his lives. He rubbed the pad of his thumb against his finger, the fretful gesture of a doer who didn’t know what to do.

Clark’s hands were completely smooth. Bruce had teased him once or twice about being rough and farm-worn, but the truth was that, of the two, Bruce was the rough one with his scars and callouses. Though the hands were muscled and strong, Clark’s skin was as soft as the day he was born. There were no callouses to scrape against Bruce’s cheek when the hand had clamped over his mouth, no rough patches to bite with a grip. They were soft, unmarred by pen or plow.

Those hands had battled gods and slain monsters.

Those hands had caught Dick and cradled him with a feather touch.

Those hands had gripped Bruce’s, swearing partnership and allegiance. 

Clark couldn’t promise he wouldn’t hurt Bruce. No one could. Maybe Bruce had been the one in the wrong, to assume that promise was something he couldn’t live without.

Bruce cleared his throat and held out a hand. “Help me up.” The order lilted up at the end, uncertainty and apology embedded in the change of tone.

Sky blue eyes flew to meet Bruce’s gaze. Bruce held steady, one hand extended. Clark stared, then smiled, and it was like watching the sun rise.

Once on his feet, Bruce leaned on Clark a little more than he might normally and murmured, “I have to get Robin to bed.” It would be a hard night for all of them, most likely. “But I could get us a table at Cezanne’s tomorrow, if you have time in your schedule.”

Clark’s smile grew. “I think I could make time.” He bumped his forehead against the cowl affectionately. Bruce rolled his eyes. Clark laughed.

“Robin,” Bruce called, “let’s go.”

They could let the god carry them down to the car. Just thinking about the walk made Bruce’s knee throb.

Dick clambered up Clark’s cape like a kitten up drapes until he had his arms hooked around Clark’s neck and his cheek resting against Clark’s head.

“Can Superman stay for midnight ice cream?”

“I don’t recall authorizing midnight ice cream,” Bruce rumbled.

“_Batmannnnn_,” Dick whined.

Bruce and Clark exchanged a look. Then Clark tilted his head and widened his eyes. “_Batmannnnn_.”

Maybe it wasn’t Superman’s inhuman powers he should have worried about, but the threat potential of a Dick and Clark big-eyed team-up. Bruce would have to look into some contingencies. But tonight, he would scoop out some Rocky Road and tomorrow he would pretend not to notice as a friend snuck fries from his plate. Some worries could wait for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Audreycritter recommended _the best_ Lois/Clark fic to me, and in one scene, Clark gets to be Wicked Awesome. It was incredible, but I got stuck on how that much power would (rightfully) freak paranoid Bruce Wayne out, especially early on in their relationship. Then Audrey turned into the "I would like to see it" meme, so here we are.
> 
> Fic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3038315/1/Getting-Eaten-Alive
> 
> Title reference:  
"You are the sun and I am just the planets / Spinning around you, spinning around you."  
—'The Last of the Real Ones' by Fall Out Boy (listen to the lyrics with these two in mind and weep)
> 
> ETA: New idea. I'm going to make things unnecessarily complicated. Any SuperBros fic I make will be lumped into this new series and connected via lyric. Because why not.


End file.
